


our love is burnt in the sun

by Jade_Masquerade



Series: Burn Bright [2]
Category: The Last Kingdom (TV), The Warrior Chronicles | The Saxon Stories - Bernard Cornwell
Genre: F/M, Post-Season 3 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:27:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: Out on the battlefield Uhtred seemed like a hero out of the legends, larger than life, every bit the acclaimed warlord with the reputation he’d built to match, sitting astride his horse, directing men, behind his shield, sword in hand, but Aethelflaed loved these moments the most, the ones where beneath her hands he was nothing more than a man.
Relationships: Aethelflaed Lady of Mercia/Uhtred of Bebbanburg
Series: Burn Bright [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737682
Comments: 11
Kudos: 87





	our love is burnt in the sun

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow up to the other story in this series, "I've Always Had Eyes For You," but can be read on its own as well 
> 
> Title from "Quick Musical Doodles" by Two Feet
> 
> As satisfying as it was, Season 4 left me wishing for more moments of Aethelflaed and Uhtred meeting in secret to carry on their affair, so I couldn't resist!

She found Uhtred in the spring at last, scrubbing away the stink of battle. He was fastidious about bathing, Aethelflaed had learned, a habit from his time with the Danes that had died hard. She should have known where to find him if he wasn’t taking stock of his equipment or satisfying his appetite or drinking with his men. 

_Or wrapped between your legs,_ she thought with a blush. There’d be talk when his men realized they had both gone missing from camp, from Finan and Sihtric and the ones who didn’t fear Uhtred’s wrath anyhow, but Aethelflaed had grown to take joy in their teasing and retort to it with some of her own, too. 

Uhtred was not so vain, no, not like her so-called husband, but he still possessed an awareness of how he looked, and she saw him straighten as he heard her approach. The blood, dirt, and grime seemed to have gone from his hair and hands, and suddenly she wished she had put a bit more effort in besides simply rinsing herself off in camp with a rag and bucket of water warmed over the fire and changing from her leather and riding clothes into skirts. 

Aethelflaed sat down carefully on the bank, sliding out of her boots and stockings first, then draping her skirts in such a way that they would avoid dipping into the water. The grass was dry and plush here, much unlike the muddied battlefield they had left behind this afternoon. “Lord Uhtred.” 

“Lady Aethelflaed,” he greeted. 

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating?” she asked. The rest of the men had returned to camp, lighting fires, pouring ale, and finding comfort with followers.

“I am,” he said, gesturing towards the sky and hills and water that lapped at his bare waist. “I’m enjoying the rest of this beautiful day.” 

“You fought well,” she said. It was only one victory out of many they would need to bring change to Mercia, but it was still well won nonetheless. The Danes had acquiesced quickly after the initial onslaught, realizing they were outnumbered and would find no path to a victory of their own, and they had consented to play their part in supporting her claim in return. They held no love for Aethelred either; he was as much an enemy to them as his own wife, and Christian or pagan, northmen or southerners, keeping his power in check was something they could all agree upon. 

“My father always said men fight better when their wives are watching,” Uhtred said, that ever-present smirk playing on his lips. 

“Wives?” Aethelflaed asked, eyebrows raised. 

“Or lovers,” he said, his voice sinking to that rumble always seemed to make her insides turn molten. 

“So that’s why you sent me away?” she said. She’d had a good view from the hill he had ordered her back onto, flanked by Aldhelm and a few of her other trusted men, and while her nerves had been tested a few times when Uhtred had disappeared from view into a swell of sword slashes or clashing shields, it had been a thrill in its own way too. “To watch?”

“Aye,” he replied, his eyes crinkling with laughter before they softened. “You know why else.”

“I could have defended myself,” she insisted. They had practiced sometimes, while on the road from the swamplands to this field outside of Derbyshire or wherever their whereabouts, but Aethelflaed had to admit oftentimes their sparring sessions devolved into something else entirely. 

“I do not doubt that,” he said, “But I would have feared for my own safety.” 

“Oh? Afraid you might not be such a fearsome warrior anymore in comparison?” she teased. 

He shrugged. “Had you taken up a sword, I don’t think I could have forced myself to look away. It would have cost me my footing, and it only takes a moment of distraction.”

She had never quite become accustomed to the way he looked at her, intimate even when they were in a hall full of people, or in front of ealdormen or common folk, her parents or priests alike, and he turned that gaze on her now as he waded to the edge. 

“You are still watching.” 

She felt her cheeks flame at being caught, yet she did not let her tone betray her embarrassment, and she haughtily turned up her chin at him. “You never told me not to.” 

“I don’t mind,” he said, cupping water in his hands and drawing it through his hair, down his arms, over his chest again. “You are always welcome.” 

Aethelflaed nodded, believing that. He had made sure she knew she was—welcome to his sword, his oath, his body. _But not his heart,_ she reminded herself. _Or at least not yet._ He hadn’t said those words, nor did she expect them from him or require them, but she still suspected she saw the way he felt evident in his gentle smile, his lingering looks, his tender touches, and as of late she had found it difficult to resist telling him the truth of how she felt for fear he would not reciprocate. 

Uhtred splashed at her, interrupting her reverie, and she giggled, raising her hands to protect her dress. 

“Blood is no matter, but you are scared of a bit of water?” He took his turn to tease her now, reaching down beneath the surface of the water to tug at her ankle. 

“You’re trying to ruin my dress on purpose,” she accused, raising the hem further to lift it out of the way of the waves he created. 

He quirked an eyebrow, nearing until he stood between her bare legs, and now he slid his hands up her sides, dampening the fabric as he went, pausing to cup her breasts through the material. “Maybe.” 

“That did work once,” she said, thinking back to that first time in the bog outside Cantucton, when she’d shed her soaked dress, changed into his clothes, and then shucked those too until she’d been as naked as her nameday. “So I suppose maybe you’ll be fortunate enough again.” 

“I’m always fortunate to be with you, Lady,” he said, threading his fingers through hers. 

Aethelflaed rolled her eyes at the line and grinned again, but she suspected there as sincerity beneath his smirk and his sarcasm. 

Uhtred must have read what she wanted in her parted lips, the quickening of her breath, and her airy sigh for he leaned closer and kissed her then, sweetly, chastely at first and then with an increasing fervor as she opened her mouth to him and let her tongue slide against his. He always did seem to know, inherently, instinctively, intuitively, and she was content with permitting him to lead, her ankles drifting to lock behind his back. 

Out there on the battlefield he had seemed like a hero out of the legends, larger than life, every bit the acclaimed warlord with the reputation he’d built to match, sitting astride his horse, directing men, behind his shield, sword in hand, but now beneath her hands he was nothing more than a man, only skin marred by scars and muscle smooth and firm without his armor. 

That was what she loved most about him, though. That he _was_ just a man, not a king, not a monster, not some kind of deity or someone who claimed to be the mouthpiece of God himself. She felt him brush between her legs, already hard, and something fluttered low in her belly—anticipation, attraction, arousal. It seemed as though he always desired her, and the thought never ceased to thrill her. 

“Your hand is up my skirts,” she scolded in jest, slapping at his wrist that stroked between her legs. 

“It wouldn’t be if you would take them off,” he said, lightly biting her neck as he moved to drop kisses down the curve of her throat. “Join me.”

Instead she rose, and he allowed her to pull him from the water. Gawking was unseemly, she knew, but he seemed content to let her look her fill as he emerged, so she did, her eyes falling to skim over the planes of his chest, the ridges of his abdomen, and lower still. 

She stepped backward and tripped, the hem of her dress catching on a stone there, and Uhtred caught her around the waist. 

“Careful, Lady,” he said, steadying her again as her shoulders shook with laughter at her own foolishness. “I did so much as warn you those damned skirts would prove a danger.” 

“You would have the entirety of my wardrobe declared a danger,” she said. “The cloaks, the blouses, the stockings…” 

“Of course I would. Those lacy nuisances you wear beneath your clothes especially.” 

“You’ve managed to tear your fair share of them already, if I recall,” she said, “It’s a wonder I have any left.” 

Uhtred had laid out his cloak to let it dry in the late afternoon sun, and it was that which he urged her back onto now. He tugged at the neckline of her dress as he went, the ties fastened loosely there, and her breasts spilled free. He slipped his thigh between her legs and Aethelflaed rocked against it without shame, his resulting groan sparking heat there as she enjoyed the friction of each grind of her hips. 

“Lady,” he breathed, but she could only think about how unladylike she must have looked in that moment as he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth and then drew the flat of his tongue across her chest to do the same to the other, her expression surely silly with bliss, her skin reddened from the rub of his beard. 

Aethelflaed framed his face in her hands and brought his lips back to hers. Kissing him always made her feel unfettered, powerful. There was no force as he let her dictate the depth with her fingers speared through his hair, no expectation or obligation, only pleasure as he gave as much of himself to her as she to him. He was greedy always, but demanding, never, and it made fire simmer beneath her skin. 

His fingers were cool from the water as he ran them between her legs again, but instead of smoothing them over right where she wished for any bit of relief, he glided them up her sides to untie her smallclothes. 

Uhtred grinned as he removed the garment delicately this time, slowly, deliberately, and set it aside. “I’ll save you those.” 

“How kind,” she said, or attempted to, at the very least, since he reached down to slide his fingers against her slit. He found her already wet from hardly more than a few kisses, and he responded with a growl she thought could only be suitably described as obscene. He slid one into her, longer and thicker than her own, and then another when she bucked against his hand for more. 

Uhtred would always give her more, whatever she asked of him, and this time was no exception. He’d learned her body well in their time on the road, and it took him no more than a few moments to find the pace and pressure she liked, to discover that particular spot inside of her, his thumb brushing against her clit, until she could take it no longer and found herself begging in a most unseemly way for still more. 

Her dress went the way of her undergarments, leaving her as naked as he was, and he pulled away to stroke his cock, coating it with her slickness, and she bit her lip as she watched, her eyes meeting his. She recognized desire there, and she wondered for the briefest instant if she was a fool to see something beyond that, too. 

Then the winds shifted, disturbing the tall grasses in their breeze, and another thought struck worry in her. Certainly she had stolen away beneath Uhtred’s cloak before, sat upon his lap when the men were in their cups at the taverns they stopped at along the way, and departed gatherings together at night to return to their tents, but never had she allowed herself to be so brazen with her affections as this. 

“Uhtred, the men… what if they…” 

He growled as though they were threatening to interrupt now rather than more than likely drinking themselves into a stupor or entertaining women of their own back at the camp. ““Then they’ll have something exciting to confess to their priests.” 

“Uhtred! That seems…” She knew he would only take it as a compliment if she called him irreverent or sacrilegious, so she let her voice fade away. 

“Perhaps we can keep watch?” he suggested, and before she could ask what that would entail, he flipped her so she faced away from him. 

“Oh! I don’t—I’ve never…” her voice faltered when she realized must have sounded stupid, but she hadn’t, not really, not like this, not when she’d _wanted_ to, at least. 

He felt her tense and stilled. “This is all right?” 

She could feel her heart beating, her breath racing, but that was no different from any other time she had laid with him, the thrill of anticipation, the want she never seemed able to suppress nor slake, and she trusted him, so she said, “Yes.” 

Uhtred’s hands settled on her hips and guided her until she knelt before him on her hands and knees, and she arched into his touch. “Are you certain?”

His hands slid up her sides, his thumbs pressing along her spine, kneading her muscles there, bending her further for him, and it took all her remaining cognizance to reply before she seemed to melt beneath his ministrations. “Yes. You can… _oh._ ” 

He pushed the slightest bit into her, and she braced against the firm ground, steeling herself for a pain that never came. 

It was a pleasant view, really, the wildflowers flitting in the wind, the grass soft and lush, the sky clear and bright. She missed seeing his face, though, how his eyes darkened when he drank her in and how he admired her with such reverence despite his usual brashness, but the sound he made as he pressed all the way into her a moment later was nearly as good, and she felt herself tight along every inch of his length. There wasn’t so much as a twinge of pain, no, there was only a feeling of fullness, pleasantness, and soon that turned to the sharpest kind of pleasure as he drew himself out only to slip into her again. 

She wriggled back against him when he paused and earned another snap of his hips in response. 

“Fuck,” he hissed, and then softened it with an added, “Lady.” 

Usually she chastised him for such language, and while she usually enjoyed that form of flirtation with him, she couldn’t now, not when she would be the worst kind of hypocrite with the curse word threatening to spill from her own lips at the sensation. She could hear how wet she was each time he eased out and thrust back in, and she could tell Uhtred watched where they were joined, too. Although she should have blushed at the knowledge of both those facts, she couldn’t feel anything but exhilarated by the way they seemed to fit together as though they had been fashioned for each other by some gods, hers or his, she didn’t care which at the moment. 

She had anticipated this would have seemed unnatural, sinful, heathen, and maybe it was, but she couldn’t fathom that anything that felt this good could be an affront to said gods. She let herself sigh his name at first, the utterance hardly more than a pathetic mewl at first, and then moaned it, muffling the wanton noise with her hand until she straightened as he encouraged her with words of his own, of how she felt clasped around him and how she looked stretched out for him like this and how his name had never sounded better than the way it did when she cried it. 

It was unlikely there were spies in the forest anyhow, and Aethelflaed couldn’t quite bring herself to care if there were anymore. Aethelred had already suspected this of her and more, so if he was to humiliate her, to disgrace her name, to punish her for it anyway, then she supposed there might as well be some veracity to his ridiculous claims. 

Uhtred took her hand and guided it down between her legs, letting her fingers skim through the folds there until she felt where they connected and then setting them right where she ached most for his touch. This was a sin now she knew for certain, but even if it required her to seek absolution through the recitation of a thousand prayers, she didn’t think she would find regret. 

She felt that spark instantly begin to coil in her belly, and it only took a few seconds longer for her to peak, fluttering around his length as divine, heavenly satisfaction washed over her. She savored the feeling until she felt him spill, the heat slinking down her thighs as he slipped free, and she turned to pull him to the ground beside her, not willing to disentangle herself from him yet. 

“I wish we could stay,” she murmured once her breath began to fill her lungs again. 

He stroked his hand through her hair, dragging his fingertips down her arm until they came to curl around her hip. “Where else would we go?” 

“Eoferwic? Ceaster? I didn’t think a nameless field in the far reaches of Mercia was where you had hoped to end up.” 

She expected him to retort with a barb, to say that King Alfred’s daughter didn’t belong in vacant meadow any more than she did in a swamp or on the frontlines of a battlefield or something of that sort, but instead he replied, “I would like that.” 

“It seems like it’d grow a bit boring for you,” she said. “No taverns. No war. No wenches.” 

“I have no need for wenches when I am with you.” Unable to resist the opportunity to tease, his irrepressible grin played on his lips again before he pressed them to her temple. “I can’t think of a place I’d rather be.” 

“Not even Bebbanburg?” 

“No. Not without you.” 

She reached for her dress again, the breeze turning chilly in the diminishing daylight. What was there to say in reply to such an impossibility?

“Aethelflaed.” He always seemed to know somehow, what she thought, how she felt, and he pulled her hands up to cover his heart, the beat of it still hard and fast from their lovemaking. “It is yours.”

“Truly?” 

“Truly.” He nodded, his face grave, before he gave a cocky jerk of his head, reached for his sword, placed the hilt in her hands, and covered them with his own. “Do you wish me to swear it?”

“No, that’s quite—”

“I, Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg, oath man of the Lady Aethelflaed, lady of Mercia and princess of Wessex…” 

She laughed, and she didn’t care who heard her joy.


End file.
